Perth psychiatrist's concerns about Graylands Hospital

18/07/2013 , 4:04 PM by PattiB

Authorities are moving some patients out of their wards at Graylands hospital in Perth, not because their health care has been successful and they can return home, but because their wards were not fit to care for them properly.

This decision came about after a routine accreditation survey by the Australian Council of Health Care Standards.

Geoff Hutchison spoke to psychiatrist and former Australian Medical Association president Paul Skerritt, who said that conditions at the hospital have always concerned him.

When Professor Perritt was the AMA president he advised the WA health minister at the time, Jim McGinty, that we needed to move people out of big institutions like Graylands and into special units in hospitals.

His advice back then was to cash in on the real estate and treat people in more modern circumstances.

The former AMA President said the institution was built over one hundred years ago and was designed for another era, when patients stayed there their whole lives and he also told Geoff that the general environment and the culture and attitude of the staff, represents a bygone era.

You can hear more of Professor Paul Skerritt’s concerns with WA’s psychiatric hospital here